What Fresh Hell
by vanillafluffy
Summary: After the events of In My Time of Dying, John Winchester endures a series of ordeals and catches glimpses of a past that might have been. Were his wife and sons keeping terrible secrets from him, or is it all part of a demonic plan to drive him mad?


Spoilers for "In My Time of Dying", prompted by dialogue in "Crossroad Blues". Angst, torture and other evilness abound.

If I owned John Winchester, I'd be too busy to write fan-fic. Any recognizable characters belong to Kripke & Co. Nancy is all mine.

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**What Fresh Hell**

John Winchester's soul exists in a realm of inventive punishment. The scope of torture he's subject to is vast, and his hosts are ceaseless in the application of torment. Agony is his omnipresent companion; he's either writhing in physical pain or cringing in mental anguish. They know all there is to know about him, have a lifetime of his guilts, nightmares and regrets to play with and use against him. Everything that's ever caused him pain or disgust or sorrow takes its turn at trying to reduce his spirit to nothingness. There's no escape from any of it.

That dog he hit with his dad's car---a long-forgotten misdeed from his seventeenth spring---its sharp teeth rend John's semblence of flesh, gnaw at his bones. His entrails spill out, tugged from his motionless-but-aware body by the black and tan mongrel, its jagged ribs showing white through the fur where the Pontiac slammed into it. He smells his own blood and shit as the cur tears him apart, consuming him for an eternity, nuzzling beneath his ribcage to devour his heart---all this stemming from a few seconds distraction while he tried to tune in a better signal on the AM radio...

Because he always worked hard to be strong, to keep going, the soul that was John Winchester has that to fight as well. He can't just let go, to allow himself to be swept into the oblivion that awaits the damned. Surrender is not in his nature. Survival is. He made it through the hell that was Vietnam---old trauma returns anew in horrific detail: the sound of the Huey that was meant to get him out receding into the distance is a death sentence. Its defection leaves him in a jungle alive with unseen enemies closing in with their sharp knives and sharper smiles. This time, there's no bittersweet homecoming; his bones will rot on foreign soil.

In the heart of the flames, Mary laughs. Her sweet loving is given to another; she sighs with pleasure as the other man's hands caress her body, offers herself to him willingly. The man who wore his face seduces his wife, penetrates her, implants his own seed. John is a helpless spectator as the two of them rut in his marriage bed, Mary ecstatic. _It's a wise man who knows his own child, _says the demon smugly in his ear. _Don't you think so, John? Perhaps you've been nuturing a cuckoo's chick all these years. Wouldn't that be funny? _

There's a cheap rental apartment, one of many transient homes he dragged his boys through during their elusive childhoods. John's a fly on the wall again, an involuntary observer as Dean tells his brother that while dad's away hunting monsters, he's in charge. How old are they here? Dean's just had his first growth spurt, Sammy still has baby-fat. Four years is a big difference at that age. Their father is aghast to see his eldest son shove his brother to the floor, the better to rape his mouth. Did such perversion ever happen while they were unsupervised, or is this yet another demonic jape?

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned; John lies spread-eagled in Nancy's bed, the room so real around him that he hears the floorboards creak as she strolls over, sharpening the old Bowie knife he gave her. His screams echo in his ears, but in the yellow rose bedroom he's mute; the only sound is Nancy's matter-of-fact drawl as she deftly skins him alive. He should've taken their relationship more seriously, his sometime-lover says without heat, wiping a bloodied palm on her crisp apron. She was always willing to accomodate him, even when he was a selfish pig obsessed with his quest for vengence. If he'd settled down with her when he had the chance, he wouldn't be here now.

Has this fiendish cruelty lasted for a hundred years or a single afternoon? There's no way of measuring time here. The only sure thing is, it will continue happening, this and more, so much more---and John can't summon up the Name of anyone to pray to for strength. If he's ever had faith in a higher power, it's corroded in the poisonous atmosphere of despair. He has himself alone to fall back on, and the only words he utters when he can find breath to gasp them out are profanities. At least, they would be profane in another world, one where cursed things aren't embraced as endearing. Here, the only four-letter word is hope.


End file.
